S Poddar
Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has opened a new pub called The Farmer’s Dog in Asthall, near Burford, Oxfordshire. The opening day at the pub saw hundreds of people who were patient enough to spend hours in the queue for their chance to be the first customers through the door for a taste of what it had in store.
The pub, formerly The Windmill, was bought by Clarkson for “less than £1m” earlier this year. It forms part of Clarkson’s empire, which has expanded out to include his famous Diddly Squat farm and Hawkstone Brewery—both of which have been televised in his Amazon TV series, Clarkson’s Farm. First and foremost, The Farmer’s Dog will promote beers and ciders brewed by its company and other sourced British products.
Speaking at the launch, Clarkson said of his decision to buy a pub: “Initially, I wanted to open a restaurant on my farm. That didn’t work out, so buying a pub seemed quite appropriate.”. “We wanted to have that restaurant on the farm last year and we couldn’t, and pubs they are all for sale. So, we thought instead of building a restaurant we would buy a pub,” Clarkson explained.
Though excited about the opening of the pub, Clarkson confessed it was much more pressure-filled than he ever could have imagined. Explaining the effort it took to get everything up and running, he said, “There’s just so many things about running a pub you don’t think about. Yesterday we had the soft opening and someone’s managed to smash the lavatory door.”
It proved to be quite an event – as hundreds of people flocked out, including hardcore fans for Clarkson’s other projects. Lauren Hanly and Blake Jones were near the front of the queue, having traveled in from Gloucester. They had already been to Diddly Squat farm shop and Hawkstone Brewery, so they were looking forward to trying some of the food and drinks on offer at The Farmer’s Dog. “”With Jeremy Clarkson’s name on it, it is always going to do well. It is a destination site, and people will come from everywhere, including the local community,” Ms. Hanly said.
Clarkson, who was joined by the cast of Clarkson’s Farm and closely followed by camera crews, seemed to be in good spirits about the pub’s location. After viewing some 40 pubs, he finally selected this pub with ideal features, like ample parking and easy accessibility. “We needed some very special things like a big car park, a big car park and lots of parking, and no little roads to get to it. There’s no-one to annoy. It’s a good spot,” Clarkson said.
Inside, the pub adopts an agricultural theme, with a vintage tractor suspended from a beam. That nods to Clarkson’s farming interests, so integral to his public persona, due to the success of Clarkson’s Farm. The pub will only sell British produce, reflecting Clarkson’s focus on local sourcing. However, Clarkson challenged how much money could be made from such a business model with such a large price differential between local and imported meats. “If I take one of our pigs and we slaughter it and butcher it and we turn it into sausages and we sell it here, it costs us 74p. If I buy imported pig meat it is 18p. So, something is wrong with the food system in this country,” he indicated.
Needless to say, there were many hiccups when launching The Farmer’s Dog. Clearly, there were major concerns over traffic and parking; the pub is located next to the busy A40. Other past ventures by Clarkson have also raised controversy among locals, most notably over traffic. Oxfordshire County Council, however, worked very closely with Clarkson and his team to alleviate these problems. Several measures were set up for the management of the flow of traffic and a safe opening day to which Clarkson publicly thanked the council for their cooperation.
The opening proved to be a surprising overall success for The Farmer’s Dog, with supporters from far and wide. With the combination of Clarkson’s name and somewhat idiosyncratic attitude toward farming and local produce, this pub will no doubt find its way into the hearts of many locals and visitors alike. It is another big step in his journey from being a television personality to an entrepreneur- pending GLfloat The Farmer’s Dog cemented the status of Clarkson as a business mogul in his own right.
